Manual Series Editor: Martin Walters Manual Series Originator:
Alan Hamilton Plants Conservation Officer
WWF International
'People and Plants' is a joint initiative of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK. Partial funding has been provided by the Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species (Department of the Environment, UK).
Titles in this series Ethnobotany: A methods manual
Gary J. Martin
Plant Invaders: The threat to natural ecosystems Quentin Cronk and Janice Fuller
People and Wild Plant Use Anthony B. Cunningham
Botanical Surveys for Conservation and Land Management Peggy Stern and Peter Ashton
Botanical Databases for Conservation and Development
The cover illustration shows German Cayti, a Chimane indigenous person, and Quico Vaca, a park ranger, participating in an ethnobotany training workshop in the Beni
Biological Station in Bolivia. They are preparing to dig roots of the palm Scheela princeps (used as a remedy for intestinal parasites) and demonstrating how to dry them
ETHNOBOTANY
A methods manual
GARY]. MARTIN
WWF International
(World Wide Fund for Nature)
UNESCO
(United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation)
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK
© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Chapman & Hall in 1995
Typeset in Goudy 10/13 by ROM-Data Corporation Ltd., Falmouth, Cornwall
ISBN 978-0-412-48370-7 ISBN 978-1-4615-2496-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4615-2496-0
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WWF
ROYAL
BOTANIC GARDENSKEW
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), founded in 1961, is the world's largest private nature conservation organization. It consists of 29 national organizations and associates, and works in more than 100 countries. The coordinating headquarters are in Gland, Switzerland. The WWF mission is to conserve biodiversity, to ensure that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable and to promote actions to reduce pollution and wasteful consumption.
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation is the only UN agency with a mandate spanning the fields of science (including social sciences), education, culture and communication. UNESCO has over 40 years of experience in testing interdisciplinary approaches to solving environment and development problems, in programs such as that on Man and the Biosphere (MAB). An interna-tional network of biosphere reserves provide sites for conservation of biological diversity, long-term ecological research, and testing and demonstrating approaches to the sustainable use of natural resources.
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew has 150 professional staff and associated researchers and works with partners in over 42 countries. Research focuses on taxonomy, preparation of floras, economic botany, plant biochemistry and many other special-ized fields. The Royal Botanic Gardens has one of the largest herbaria in the world and an excellent botanic library.
Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species
At the Earth Summit in June 1992, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom announced the Darwin Initiative as a demonstration of the UK's commitment to the aims of the Biodiversity Convention. The Initiative will build on Britain's scientific, educational and commercial strengths in the field of biodiversity to assist in the conservation of the world's biodiversity and natural habitats, particularly in those countries rich in biodiversity but poor in resources.
International Society for Ethnobiology
The ISE is the largest professional organization dedicated to sustainable use of natural resources and community development, and has endorsed the compilation of this manual.
DISCLAIMER
While the organizations concerned with the production of this manual firmly believe that its subject is of great importance for conservation, they are not responsible for the detailed opinions expressed.
The 'People and Plants' Initiative Alan Hamilton
International Panel of Advisers Internal Panel of Advisers
Foreword Professor G. T. Prance
Preface Introduction x xii xiv xvi xvii xx
1 Data collection and hypothesis testing 1
1.1 Choosing an approach 2
1.2 Six disciplines which contribute to an ethnobotanical study 3
1.3 Rapid ethnobotanical appraisal 3
1.4 Planning a long-term project 7
1.5 Describing the field site 8
1.6 Ethnobotanical data 1. 7 Visual aids
1.8 The law of diminishing returns 1.9 Hypothesis testing and theory 2 Botany
2.1 Collecting and identifying plants
2.2 Preparing an ethnobotanical reference collection 2.3 Herbaria and the curation of plant specimens 2.4 Judging the completeness of a plant survey 3 Ethnopharmacology and related fields
3.1 Proceeding with a phytochemical analysis 3.2 Screening 10 18 19 23 27
28
59
59
61 6768
77CONTENTS
3.3 Collecting plants for phytochemical analysis 3.4 The ethics of searching for new plant products 3.5 Bringing phytochemistry back home
4 Anthropology
4.1 Talking with local people
4.2 Searching for ethnobotanical information in folklore 4.3 Surveys and analytical tools
5 Ecology
5.1 Describing microenvironments and quantifying their plant resources
5.2 Qualitative approaches
5.3 Bridging the gap between qualitative and quantitative approaches
5.4 Quantitative approaches 6 Economics
6.1 Economics and ethnobotany 6.2 The value of the environment 6.3 The value of forest products
6.4 Surveys of community and household economy 6.5 Local markets
7 Linguistics
7.1 Learning a local language 7.2 Collaborating with linguists
81 89 91 95
96
112 116 137 138 138 155 155 171172
172
173 183 191 201 202 2027.3 Where there is no linguist 203
7.4 Transcribing the local language 204
7.5 Linguistic analysis in ethnobotany 205
7.6 Free listing 213
7.7 Systematic surveys of local plant knowledge 215 7.8 Categories of ethnobiological classification 215 7.9 The correspondence between folk and scientific classification 218
8 Ethnobotany, conservation and community development
8.1 Applying traditional ecological knowledge
223
224 8.2 Ethnobotanical research and community development 224
8.3 Forests 225
8.4 Conservation of wild crop relatives and endangered useful
plants 228
8.5 Education 231
8.6 Use of protected areas 234
8.7
The local perspective on ethnobotanical research 2398.8 The path ahead 251
References 253
Further reading 261
The 'People and
Plants'Initiative
This manual is one of a series, forming a contribution to the People and Plants Initiative of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (UK). The Initiative has received financial support from the Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species (Department of the Environment, UK) and the Tropical Forestry Program (US Department of Agriculture). The main objective of the People and Plants Initiative is to build up the capacity for work with local communities on botanical aspects of conservation, especially in countries with tropical forests. The principal intention in the manual series is to provide information which will assist botanists and others to undertake such practical conservation work. Other components of the People and Plants Initiative include demonstration projects in Malaysia, Madagascar, Uganda, Mexico, Brazil and Bolivia, as well as support for workshops and publication of working papers.
This manual on ethnobotany is central to the People and Plants Initiative. It contains descriptions of methods useful for working with local communities to learn about their knowledge and uses of the plant world, for example to determine
which social groups within a village use which species of plants in what quantities and for what purposes. Ethnobotanical studies can help identify conservation issues, such as cases where rates of harvest of plants exceed rates of regrowth. The fact that ethnobotany is, or should be, a collaborative venture between people in local communities, including various specialists, and scientists means that a start can be made to explore solutions to conservation and development issues, even as information on plant uses is being collected.
Many people, especially in poorer countries, rely on wild-collected plants for food, construction materials, fuelwood, medicine and many other purposes. Today, there is often a decrease in the availability of wild plant resources, related to increased human populations and the effects of competition with other forms of land use. Ethnobotanical surveys can help local communities define their needs for plant resources more clearly, thus assisting them to state their cases for continuing access to certain areas of land or for provision of alternatives to wild gathering, should this be necessary.
Traditionally, local communities worldwide are extremely knowledgeable about local plant and other natural resources, on which they are so immediately and intimately dependent. Unfortunately, much of this wealth of knowledge is today becoming lost as traditional cultures become eroded. Ethnobotanists can play very useful roles in rescuing disappearing knowledge and returning it to local communities. In this way local ethnobotanical knowledge can be conserved as part of living cultural-ecological systems, helping to maintain a sense of pride in local cultural knowledge and practices, and reinforcing links between communities and the environment, so essential for conservation.
Alan Hamilton
Plants Conservation Officer WWF International
International panel of
advisors
Janis Alcorn
Biodiversity Support Program United States of America
Brent Berlin
Department of Anthropology University of California at Berkeley
United States of America
Javier Caballero
Botanical Garden, Institute of Biology National Autonomous University of Mexico
Mexico
Elaine Elizabetsky
Department of Pharmacology, Institute of Bioscience Federal University of Rio Grande do Sur
Brazil
Richard Ford
Department of Anthropology University of Michigan United States of America
Timothy Johns
Centre for Nutrition and the Environment of Indigenous Peoples McGill University
Canada
Virginia Nazarea-Sandoval Department of Anthropology University of California at Santa Cruz
United States of America Darrell Posey St. Anthony's College
University of Oxford United Kingdom
Pei Sheng-ji Kunming Institute of Botany
People's Republic of China Ghillean Prance Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Internal panel of
advisors
Alejandro de Avila
Field Representative, Mexican Program WWF-US
Miguel Cliisener Godt
Man and the Biosphere Program UNESCO
Phillip Cribb
Acting Head, Economic Botany and Conservation Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Anthony Cunningham
Coordinator, People and Plants Initiative
Malcolm Hadley
Man and the Biosphere Program UNESCO
Alan Hamilton
Plants Conservation Officer WWF - International
Michel Pimbert
Head, Biodiversity Department WWF - International
Nat Quansah WWF Aires Protegees
Madagascar
Charles Stirton
Deputy Director Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Foreword
Ethnoecology has blossomed in recent years into an important science because of the realization that the vast body of knowledge contained in both indigenous and folk cultures is being rapidly lost as natural ecosystems and cultures are being destroyed by the encroachment of development.
Ethnobotany and ethnozoology both began largely with direct observations about the ways in which people used plants and animals and consisted mainly of the compilation of lists. Recently, these subjects have adopted a much more scientific and quantitative methodology and have studied the ways in which people manage their environment and, as a consequence, have used a much more ecological approach. This manual of ethnobotanical methodology will become an essential tool for all ethnobiologists and ethnoecologists. It fills a significant gap in the literature and I only wish it had been available some years previously so that I could have given it to many of my students. I shall certainly recommend it to any future students who are interested in ethnoecology.
I particularly like the sympathetic approach to local peoples which pervades this book. It is one which encourages the ethnobotanical work by both the local people themselves and by academically trained researchers. A study of this book will avoid many of the arrogant approaches of the past and encourage a fair deal for any group which is being studied. This manual promotes both the involvement oflocal people and the return to them of knowledge which has been studied by outsiders.
Ethnoecology is by its very nature an interdisciplinary subject, demanding a holistic approach which integrates techniques from biology, anthropology, no-menclature, ethnology and many other fields. The author is well qualified to write a manual on such a broad field because he was trained in both botany and anthropology and consequently blends his two disciplines together in a well balanced approach to the subject. The use of this manual will certainly help to raise the standard of future work in ethnobotany.
Ghillean T Prance Director
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Preface
How did this manual come about?
I became interested in writing a book on ethnobotanical methodology while studying indigenous classification of plants in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca, Mexico. When writing up the results of this research for my doctoral thesis, I met Alan Hamilton, Plants Conservation Officer of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF International). He considered ethnobotany to be an essential part of his program and together we sketched out a proposal to include this book in a series of WWF manuals on plant conservation.
After the manual was underway, WWF joined forces with the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to launch 'People and Plants', an international initiative that provides support and training for local ethnobotanists. Among other activi-ties, the partner institutions in this initiative are sponsoring a series of training seminars that bring together local people, researchers and students to discuss how to carry out and apply ethnobotanical studies.
As part of the People and Plants initiative, I am continuing my work in Mexico and am participating in ethnobotanical projects in Kinabalu Park in Sabah - a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo - and in the Beni Biosphere Reserve, which is located in the Bolivian Amazon. These field experiences, as well as the contacts I have made with colleagues during seminars and visits in other countries, have much entiched this manual.
The concepts and techniques I present are drawn in small part from my own fieldwork and in large part from the research and publications of other ethnobotanists. From among these talented colleagues, I chose a group of interna-tional experts to advise me on the project. The panel's members, who are listed at the front of the manual, reflect the diverse origins and disciplines that characterize ethnobotany. In addition, several colleagues from WWF, UNESCO and Kew who participate in People and Plants - also listed at the front of the manual- reviewed the manuscript and contributed their valuable perspectives on the link between ethnobotany, biodiversity conservation and community development. Various colleagues have provided comments on specific chapters, including Michael
PREFACE
Balick, John Beaman, Chayan Picheansoonthon, Eugene Hunn, Oliver Phillips and Lionel Robineau. Participants in a graduate seminar on ethnobiology, organ-ized by Brent Berlin at the University of California at Berkeley, reviewed the entire manuscript and provided many useful comments.
Malcolm Hadley and Alison Semple of the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Program provided encouragement and technical support throughout the period of writing. Martin Walters, editor of the WWF plant conservation manual series, worked closely with me on the text, ensuring its readability. He also arranged for all of the illustrations, skilfully executed by Oxford Illustrators and Janet Simmonett. Although I drew upon the expertise of many people in writing the manual, I assume responsibility for its final form.
An autobiographical note and some acknowledgements
Because this manual reflects my own cultural and scientific biases, readers should know how I came to study ethnobotany and who supported me in this endeavor.
At first, I didn't wander far from home in my botanical explorations. I merely crossed the street in East Lansing, my home town, to study botany at Michigan State University. John Beaman, the curator of the University's Beal-Darlington Herbarium, invited me to collect plants with him in Mexico and Guatemala, an experience which converted me to tropical botany.
After finishing my bachelor's degree, I returned to Mexico to pursue a lingering dream left from my first trip - to discover which plants were being used for food and medicine or traded in rural marketplaces by indigenous communities in Oaxaca. After a year in Mexico, I opted to pursue a doctorate in anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley, where I focused on ethnobiology.
When it came time to pursue my dissertation research, I returned to Oaxaca to work among the Chinantec, Mixe and Zapotec Indians of the Sierra Norte. My theoretical approach was guided by Brent Berlin, a professor of anthropology at Berkeley who has written extensively on the folk classification of plants and animals. lowe my methodological orientation to Eugene Hammel, a Berkeley demographer who taught me how to use computers, statistics and common sense in designing my research.
In Mexico, I had the opportunity to work with Stefano Varese, a Peruvian anthropologist who was coordinating the Oaxaca regional office of Culturas Pop-ulares, a program of Mexico's Secretarfa de Educaci6n Publica, which brought together cultural promoters from Chinantec, Mixe and Zapotec communities. While inter-acting with Stefano and his co-workers, I came to appreciate the complexities of applying basic ethnobotanical research to community development.
Towards the end of my stay in Oaxaca, several colleagues and I began to form a non-profit group that eventually became known as SERBO: Sociedad para el
Estudio de los Recursos Bi6ticos de Oaxaca (Society for the Study of the Biotic Resources of Oaxaca). SERBO's focus on integrating research with efforts towards
biodiversity conservation and community development has been a constant source of inspiration for this manual.
The writing of this manual was made possible through a grant from WWF International, with additional support from UNESCO. The field projects in Mexico, Malaysia and Bolivia in which I participate have been supported by various foundations. The ethnobotanical survey of the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca was funded by grants from the Garden Club of America, National Science Foundation (Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Award), Wenner-Gren Foundation for An-thropological Research and Wodd Wildlife Fund (US). I was supported during my tenure in Mexico by Fulbright-Hays and National Science Foundation pre-doc-toral training fellowships and by a scholarship from the Inter-American Founda-tion. Additional support was provided by the University of California at Berkeley, Missouri Botanical Garden and New York Botanical Garden. The Projek Ethnobotani Kinabalu in Malaysia was initiated through grants from WWF Inter-national and UNESCO, and is continuing with support from the MacArthur Foundation. My participation in the Proyecto Etnoecol6gico del Beni in the Beni Biological Station of Bolivia began through a Fulbright award from the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars of the United States. Additional support has been provided by UNESCO.
Without the hospitality and collaboration of many local people in communities in Latin America and Asia, I would never have realized my goal of becoming an ethnobotanist. I would like to thank in particular the people of Santiago Com-altepec and Totontepec who helped me during my first intensive study.
A dedication
A. Barrera, one of the first promoters of ethnobotany in Mexico, wrote: The best ethnobotanist would be a member of an ethnic minority who, trained in both botany and anthropology, would study ... the traditional knowledge, cultural significance, and the management and uses of the flora. And it would be even better - for him and his people - if his study could result in economic and cultural benefits for his own community.
This book is dedicated to those aspiring ethnobotanists who set out to record and apply ecological knowledge among their own people.
The manual is also dedicated to my family, who have endured with patience my long hours at the computer and my frequent trips abroad. I hope that they will increasingly share in the fruits of my work.
Paris, France February 1994
Introduction
Ethnoecology - the broader discipline?
Ethno-is a popular prefix these days, because it is a short way of saying 'that's the way other people look at the world'. When used before the name of an academic discipline such as botany or pharmacology, it implies that researchers are exploring local people's perception of cultural and scientific knowledge. Leaf through the index of an anthropological journal and you will find articles that range from ethnoastronomy {local perception of stars, planets and other celestial bodies} to ethnozoology {local knowledge and use of animals}. The term ethnoecology is increasingly used to encompass all studies which describe local people's interaction with the natural environment, including subdisciplines such as ethnobiology, ethnobotany, ethnoentomology and ethnozoology. Ethnobotany is that part of ethnoecology which concerns plants.
How can ethnoecology be described to someone who has never heard the term?
The basic definition is the one implied above - the study of how people interact with all aspects of the natural environment, including plants and animals, land-forms, foresttypes and soils, among many other things [43,73,141,149,159]. Given this diversity of subjects, ethnoecology is a multidisciplinary endeavor which attracts a broad community of people who contribute their own special knowledge and skills [20,140]. At times, several researchers work together as a team in planning and carrying out a field project. Botanists collect and identify plant specimens, linguists study local names, anthropologists record ecological knowl-edge, pharmacognosists analyze medicinal properties of plants, ecologists describe the local classification of vegetation types, zoologists monitor animal populations, resource economists estimate the value of forest products - and the roster goes on. This teamwork is the exception rather than the rule. Ethnoecologists must often labor alone, trespassing the boundaries of many academic disciplines in their quest to attain a holistic vision of local ecological knowledge. Because of some roman-ticized accounts, there persists a popular image of ethnoecologists as loners who venture into unexplored virgin forests to contact isolated groups of indigenous people and to make lists of the medicinal and hallucinogenic plants of which only
shamans and witch doctors know the secrets. Some observers conclude that xx
ethnoecology is an old-fashioned business of creating catalogues of useful plants and animals, something more associated with early explorers, missionaries and natural historians than with modern scientists.
There are many elements of these myths that must be dispelled. Although they work in primary forests, ethnoecologists are also interested in a broad range of vegetation types which have been altered by people, ranging from home gardens to mature secondary forests, where the majority of useful plants are found.
Who are these local people that ethnoecologists study? Much research focuses on the ecological knowledge of the world's indigenous people, but some ethnobotanists work with traditional agriculturalists who do not consider them-selves 'indigenous'. Those who do define themthem-selves as indigenous have varied lifestyles. While it is true that some have had little contact with outsiders, the majority are integrated into the economy and politics of the country in which they live. Although most ethnoecology is done in rural areas, some studies - such as the description of plants or animals sold in urban marketplaces - are carried out in cities.
Ethnoecology is no longer concerned with mere list-making. Systematic re-search into local ecological knowledge allows us to address theoretical questions about the relationship between humans and their environment and to contribute to rural development and conservation projects. As part of these theoretical and practical approaches, ethnoecologists continue to catalogue information on the local classification and use of plants and animals. Any impression that these ethnobiological inventories are old-fashioned will be quickly dispelled by listening to local people and researchers who tell of the urgency of recording ecological knowledge and collecting biological organisms before they disappear forever.
As a discipline which integrates many diverse academic fields, ethnoecology is having an impact on the way that basic and applied research is carried out. After decades in which the natural sciences and even the social sciences have become increasingly reductionist, ethnoecology promises to give a holistic view of our knowledge of the environment. This basic goal of natural history, nearly aban-doned in the quest for specialized knowledge in fields such as particle physics and molecular genetics, is gaining new importance as scientists seek to understand the ecological wisdom of local people.
Ethnobotany - the scope of this manual
Because ethnoecology is too broad a subject to be condensed into a single book, this manual focuses on ethnobotany and in particular on methods of making inventories of useful plants. Even this is a very broad subject and ethnobotanists need to have some understanding of a broad range of academic disciplines. Ethnobotanists often have to work without the support of colleagues in other subject areas - and there can be advantages in doing so from the point of view of establishing close relationships with local communities. However, in many
in-INTRODUCTION
stances there are advantages in the team approach, involving specialists in various disciplines such as plant taxonomy, anthropology, linguistics, economic botany and others, working together to achieve more detailed and reliable results.
This manual describes the basic concepts, skills and techniques that guide collection of quality data in the field. The style and content are designed for field workers - including park rangers, university students, cultural promoters and nature guides - who are beginning their first research project. I hope the manual will also be useful to seasoned ethnobotanists and colleagues of related disciplines. The manual is to be used in designing projects which yield not only accurate information, but also practical results that can be applied to community develop-ment and biological conservation. It is intended for those who need to gather ethnobotanical data in a few weeks or months as well as those who can dedicate many years of research to a single area. Although focused on fieldwork, the manual offers advice on ways of following up field studies by consulting herbaria, libraries and museums as well as working with specialized colleagues in research laboratories. In order to make the manual accessible to people from various educational backgrounds, I have left the text free of conventions of scientific writing such as footnotes. I mention by name the many researchers who have contributed to the ideas presented in the manual and in the bibliography I list some of the books and articles they have written. All technical terms are highlighted and defined when first used. Terms that are transcribed from indigenous languages are both high-lighted and italicized, such as ojts, the Mixe word for 'herb'. Words from languages such as Spanish and French are simply italicized.
The first chapter gives a basic description of data gathering and hypothesis-test-ing. Chapters 2 through 7 form the core of the manual, exploring the contribution to ethnobotany from the diverse fields of botany, ethnopharmacology, anthropol-ogy, ecolanthropol-ogy, economics and linguistics. Chapter 8 explores the link between ethnobotany, biodiversity conservation and community development.
Throughout the manual, I often turn to the case studies I know best - the ethnobotanical inventories I am carrying out with Chinantec and Mixe-speaking people in the Sierra Norte of Oaxaca and with Dusun people who live around Kinabalu Park in Sabah, Malaysia. The Sierra Norte, approximately 300 kilome-ters long and 80 kilometers wide, ranges from 320 meters to nearly 3400 meters above sea level. The region comprises 3 distritos and 59 municipios that are found between 16°45' Nand 18°10' N latitude and 96°06' Wand 98°30' W longitude, south of the Tropic of Cancer. Santiago Comaltepec, a highland Chinantec municipality in the Sierra Norte, includes some 2000 residents who inhabit nearly
200 square kilometers of communal lands and private property. Totontepec is a highland Mixe municipality which includes some 320 km2 of territory and over
5300 inhabitants.
Mount Kinabalu - in Sabah, Malaysia - is the highest mountain between the Himalayas and New Guinea. Rising to 4101 meters in northern Borneo, it is the
centerpiece of a protected mountainous zone that measures approximately 700 km2• Around the perimeter of the park, there are many communities of Dusun-speaking people.
By referring to these localities in the various chapters, I hope to demonstrate the interrelationship of the many different aspects of local people's knowledge of the environment. In addition, I take case studies from work carried out by many colleagues throughout the world. By indicating the diversity of approaches and cultural contexts of our research, I hope to show that ethnobotanical studies can be carried out by a variety of people in diverse countries and ecosystems.
Due to limitations of space, the original manuscript was trimmed of much background and supplementary material. Many of these sections have been in-cluded in a report in the MAB Digest series, provisionally entitled Comparing Scientific and Traditional Botanical Knowledge, which can be ordered from the People and Plants Initiative, Division of Ecological Sciences, Man and the Biosphere Program, UNESCO, 7, place de Fontenoy, 75352 Paris Cedex 07 SP, France. It is hoped that the Initiative will publish a number of smaller booklets to supplement this manual, including a sourcebook on how to find bibliography and financial support for projects, as well as guides to topics which could not be covered in detail in this text, such as phytochemical screening in the field and comparison of traditional and scientific diagnosis of illness.
A note about terminology
Ethnobotanical fieldwork was originally conceived as an art and skill practised by outsiders who travelled to distant lands to document customs and beliefs. At present, many people have adopted ethnobotanical methods to carry out studies of their own communities. Although this manual is intended both for outside researchers and for local people who are studying their cultural beliefs, it is difficult to write a description of ethnobotanical methods without sometimes referring to local people as the objects of the study and researchers as the people who carry out the investigation.
I employ the term local people for residents of the region under study who have gained their ecological knowledge from empirical observation of nature and from communication with other people in their culture. To be more precise in specific examples, I sometimes use the terms indigenous people, traditional agriculturalists or subsistence farmers as synonyms.
I use researchers for people, usually trained at a university, who document this traditional knowledge in collaboration with local people. In the context of certain case studies, researchers are called by the name which corresponds to their chosen profession - botanists, anthropologists, linguists, or simply scientists.
Much of the specialized vocabulary that ethnobotanists employ is marked by old prejudices, which makes it difficult to describe the participants in our joint venture. Calling one group 'scientific' implies that the empirical knowledge of the
INTRODUCTION
others lacks rigor, whereas labelling some people 'traditional' may promote the mistaken notion that their partners are more modem.
Throughout the text, I use the terms traditional knowledge or folk knowledge to refer to what local people know about the natural environment, whereas I consider scientific knowledge as information derived from research. These terms are widely understood and accepted by ethnobotanists, who understand that traditional knowledge has sometimes been acquired recently, some scientific knowledge is derived from Indo-European traditional beliefs and folk knowledge demonstrates much scientific rigor [8,68,158].
In creating a dichotomy between scientific and folk knowledge, we are apt to evoke both old stereotypes and new controversies. Some people think that science provides the correct model of the natural world and should be adopted by everybody. For this reason, they give little credit to self-taught naturalists who lack a formal education. Others feel that the right to cultural self-determination is pre-eminent and that science can only corrupt the purity of indigenous knowledge. Ethnoecologists do not seek to judge systems of knowledge, declaring one superior to another. Their research has revealed both the wealth of detailed information contained in folk systems of natural science and the utility of using scientific classification as a looking glass through which various ind igenous systems can be observed and compared. By employing the techniques described in this manual, we can bring our understanding and appreciation of traditional knowledge into sharper focus.
1
Data collection and
hypothesis testing
DA T A COLLECTION AND HYPOTHESIS TESTING 1.1 Choosing an approach
When designing an ethnobotanical project, it is important to define what you wish to achieve and then to select the approach which best suits your interests, budget and schedule. It is easy to be overly enthusiastic about what can be accomplished in a short field season. Once the project begins, you discover the complexity of local ecological knowledge and the diversity of the flora and fauna. You experience unforseen delays caused by the weather, equipment failure and other events beyond your control.
Many of the methods used in ethnobotanical studies are time··consuming and moderately costly, making it impractical to apply all in a single period of fieldwork. For this reason many researchers divide their time between visits to the field with stays back home analyzing the data and writing up the results. Once you complete the process of adapting a technique for your field site, collecting the data and analyzing the results, you will be better able to choose a complementary approach in the future. For example, if you record the uses and names of medicinal plants in a community, you can identify the specimens and search ethnopharmacology databases and literature to evaluate which merit further study before returning to the field to gather samples for chemical analysis.
It may be costly to make several trips to the field, but remember that the most satisfactory projects - from a personal viewpoint as well as from the perspective of the community and your colleagues - are those which span several seasons and continue for a number of years.
In practice, the time and resources that ethnobotanists can dedicate to projects vary widely. Let's take the example of several case studies discussed in this manual: • K.C. Malhotra, M. Poffenberger, A. Bhattacharya and D. Dev spent two days making a rapid inventory of non-wood forest products and an assessment of forest regeneration in a village in West Midnapore District in Southwest Bengal. This formed part of a long-term study of the impact of Forest Protec-tion Committees on forest regeneraProtec-tion in the region [1].
• O. Phillips spent a total of 12 months over a period of five years in the T ambopata Reserve in southern Peru to document Mestizo use of plant resources [2--4].
• R. O. Guerrero and 1. Robledo, combining work in the field and the laboratory, analyzed the biological activity of plants from the Caribbean National Forest over a period of 30 months [5].
• B. Berlin worked with various colleagues in Chiapas, Mexico, for several years in the early 1960s to document the botanical classification of the T zeltal, a group of Maya-speaking agriculturalists. Berlin returned to the region in the late 1980s with other colleagues to focus on the medical ethnobiology of the highland Maya in a multi-year project [6, 7].
1.2 Six disciplines which contribute to an ethnobotanical study Because it is often said that ethnobotany is a multidisciplinary endeavor, it should be easy to enumerate the fields of study that contribute to analyzing how humans interact with the plant world. What are they? This is a question often posed by people who are beginning their first ethnobotanical study. Yet even experienced researchers fumble about for the recipe: botany of course and some linguistics, a background in anthropology helps and you had better know some chemistry and economics.
The response depends in part on the kind of project that is planned. There are four major interrelated endeavors in ethnobotany: (1) basic documentation of traditional botanical knowledge; (2) quantitative evaluation of the use and man-agement of botanical resources; (3) experimental assessment of the benefits derived from plants, both for subsistence and for commercial ends; and (4) applied projects that seek to maximize the value that local people attain from their ecological knowledge and resources. Walter Lewis, an ethnobotanist at Washing-ton University, has suggested that the first three elements be referred to as basic, quantitative and experimental ethnobotany, respectively [8].
The focus in this manual is on six fields of study: botany, ethnopharmacology, anthropology, ecology, economics and linguistics. In any long-term project, tech-niques borrowed from these fields can be combined to carry out a systematic survey of the traditional botanical knowledge in a single community or region.
1.3 Rapid ethnobotanical appraisal
Although many researchers prefer long-term projects, they are sometimes called upon to make a rapid ethnobotanical study - gathering data on minor forest products for an environmental impact statement, making a preliminary list of biological resources at sites that have been set aside as protected areas or simply conducting an initial ethnobotanical inventory in several communities in order
to decide where it would be most interesting to carry out long-term research.
We can find many faults with studies that only last a few days. They do not allow a deep working relationship to develop between an ethnobotanist and the community. Careful documentation of the cultural and biological aspects of local knowledge is not possible, because there is little time to make voucher collections, transcribe local names or talk with a range of informants. Above all, short visits do not permit local people to learn rigorous ethnobotanical methods that would allow them to manage more effectively resources in their own communities. Yet the urgency of encountering solutions to community and conservation problems sometimes requires that we make a quick assessment of ecological knowledge and resource use, while rapidly teaching local people some of the basic techniques we employ.
As a response to this dilemma, international development workers have im-provised various methods of making a fast low-cost assessment of the use of forest
DA T A COLLECTION AND HYPOTHESIS TESTING
resources and many other aspects of community development. Techniques adopted from various disciplines have been combined to form a collaborative approach called Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). Although originally devel-oped to guide and evaluate development initiatives, PRA is readily applicable to ethnobotanical studies, as can be seen from the example given in Box 1.1.
Box 1.1 Rapid appraisal of non-wood forest products in India
Over a two-day period in 1991, a multidisciplinary team carried out a rapid appraisal of forest regeneration and harvesting of non-wood forest products with the members of a community in West Midnapore District in Southwest Bengal. As a first step, the participants selected several 100 m2 plots that
showed various degrees of protection from deforestation. They made an inventory of the trees in each plot, determining the species and recording the size of each individual.
In a working paper, K.C. Malhotra, M. Poffenberger, A. Bhattacharya and D. Dev [1] describe the ethnobotanical component of this experience:
... tribal and some non-tribal people who have strong ties to the forest can identify hundreds of productive species and how they are used as sources of foods, medicines, fiber and construction materials, gums, dyes, tannins, etc. Using secondary data and local resource persons this information was documented in the case study sites. Listings were made for all products used for home consumption or sale. Data were collected regarding harvesting seasons and volumes. An attempt was also made to determine the parts of the plant utilized.
During this rapid appraisal, many useful plant species were i.dentified. For example, the researchers recorded the names of 29 minor forest products available in a forest that had been protected for three years. The Latin names of 15 of these were noted and information on the market price was recorded for six of them.
In their report, the coordinators of this participatory exercise also point out the limitations of their assessment. They were not able to document all of the important biological resources, neglecting for example the mushrooms that are available only during the monsoon and early post-monsoon periods. They did not enquire in a systematic way about the volume of plant materials harvested or what prices they brought in local markets. No el[hnobotanical voucher collections were made and the scientific names of nearly half of the plants went undetermined.
Judging the successes and deficiencies of the experience, they made suggestions on how future research should proceed. Among other recom-mendations, they proposed that the exercise be extended to include visits
during the various seasons of the year and that an intensive study be made of the marketing of non-wood resources, including collection of data on volume flows and the possible depletion of certain plants.
Although PRA borrows many of its tools from traditional disciplines such as rural sociology, anthropology, ecology and economics, there are important differ-ences that distinguish this rapid approach from academic research. Local people are
full
participants in the study rather than being merely the objects of the investigation. They take part in the design of the study, data collection, analysis of the findings and discussions of how the results can be applied for the benefit of the community. The outsiders in the research team come from a variety of academic backgrounds, ensuring a multidisciplinary perspective. The relationship between all participants - locals and outsiders - is egalitarian, avoiding the hierarchical or top-down approach common to much research.The techniques can be carried out in a short time and do not require expensive tools because participants are seeking a sketch of local conditions rather than an in-depth study. A small group of local people is selected to be interviewed in a semi-structured way. A wide range of topics may be covered in a preliminary way, allowing a comprehensive view of how the community works as a whole. Mea-surements are qualitative rather than quantitative and few statistical tools are used in the interpretation of the results. The emphasis is on highly visual techniques that community members carry out amongst themselves, often in collaboration with outside researchers - sketching maps to show local classifica-tion of ecological zones, creating pie charts that represent the amount of time that people dedicate to various productive activities or drawing calendars which show seasonal fluctuations in climate, to give just a few examples. The analysis of the data is carried out in the community, which allows participants to modify their methods on the spot and to fill in any data which are missing after initial fieldwork. Often the participants pass through successive rounds of data gathering and analysis, which allows them to refine their techniques during the course of the exercise.
PRA is a cost-effective approach because much can be accomplished in a few days, including writing up of the final results and recommendations. This stands in contrast to many traditional methods of field research which require months of data analysis and writing before final conclusions can be reached.
These various aspects of PRA guarantee a good amount of flexibility, allowing the approach to be adapted to the very diverse cultural and ecological conditions under which ethnobotanists work. Throughout the manual, research tools from PRA are suggested as one way of documenting how people interact with their environment, especially as a complement to more rigorous methods of data collection.
DA T A COLLECTION AND HYPOTHESIS TESTING
Here are a few general points to keep in mind when pllanning a rapid ethnobotanical assessment, drawn from the experience of colleagues who have carried out participatory appraisals in different countries and cultural contexts [9,
10]:
• Prepare yourself before fieldwork. Obtain secondary infmmation - maps, floras, faunas, vegetation analysis, census statistics, reports on forest use - to gain a preliminary idea of the land, the people and the conservation issues in the region. Consult the maps to select the specific sites and villages that you will visit. Whenever possible, have local people participate in the collection of these secondary sources of information, whether in their community or in nearby governmental offices or universities.
• Form a multidisciplinary team. Make prior contact with a linguist familiar with the local language, a botanist who knows the flora, an anthropologist who has studied local people's classification and management of the environ-ment and other researchers who have worked in the region. If these people or some of their colleagues cannot accompany you in the field, see if they can give tips on what plants to collect, how to transcribe the language and what native categories exist. Determine if they can review the results of the appraisal after the fieldwork is finished or participate in a subsequent stage of the work. These preliminary consultations should be made by a small committee that includes local people, when possible.
• Ensure community participation. As a first step, seek the full cooperation and permission of local authorities before starting fieldwork. Ask them to recom-mend several local people, including specialist resource users, who can work with the assessment team. A general presentation can be made in the com-munity to explain the goals of the appraisal, particularly if many families will be participating.
• Be selective in your choice of techniques. Concentrate on the methods that will yield the information you need for the appraisal, rather than exploring a broad range of techniques. Collect the minimum amount of data that will allow you to assess local patterns of resource use or ecological knowledge rather than trying to investigate a specific topic in great detail. Choose methods of analysis that can be understood by all participants and that do not require time-consuming calculations or expensive tools such as computers.
• Do everything systematically. The appraisal should be done systematically so that others who wish to conduct a more thorough study consult your results and add to them. This includes making a map of the sites that you visit,
recording the names of all local people who participate in the exercise, identifying as fully as possible the biological species encountered and recor-ding on paper or on tape the semi-structured interviews that are carried out. The conclusions of the appraisal, together with any drawings, charts or
graphics created during the stay, should be presented in a final report that is written in a style accessible to a wide range of people, including local participants.
1.4 Planning a long~term project
After you carry out a rapid appraisal, you may decide to continue research for a few weeks, a season or several years during which you will be able to apply more rigorous research methods. A longer period in the field will allow you to work with local people to record ecological knowledge in a variety of social contexts, including community festivals, ritual occasions and seasonal farming activities. Regardless of the special techniques chosen and of the scope of the research, there are minimum standards of ethnobotanical documentation that should be consid-ered in any long-term community project (explained in more detail in later chapters):
• Specimens of all species represented in the study must be collected, identified and deposited in an herbarium, zoological museum, seed bank or equivalent facility. The collections should be prepared in accordance with the guidelines supplied by collaborating biologists. All specimens should be accompanied by a label detailing the scientific name, locality, description, collector and number of the collection as well as other information.
• All local categories of plants should be identified and information collected on the distribution, use and management of the corresponding botanical species. This cultural information should be confirmed in discussions with numerous community members who represent the social diversity of the community where you are studying - rich and poor, young and old, men and women and so on. The age, educational background, occupation, language ability and other personal data should be recorded for each local person who participates in the project.
• All local plant names and other key terms must be accurately transcribed using a widely-accepted phonetic alphabet or local writing system. The names may be recorded on tape by several native speakers so that other researchers can review the accuracy of the transcriptions.
• Each plant or animal population sampled for analysis in a laboratory or research center should be documented by a voucher specimen. The material used for analysis must be prepared in a standard way in the field, appropriate for the tests that will be carried out.
• The local perception and classification of diverse aspects of the natural environment should be recorded, including concepts of vegetational com-munities, soil types, geographical landmarks, climate zones and seasons. The more you intend to study the management of natural areas, the more you must document the physical and biological aspects of the environment by taking
DA T A COLLECTION AND HYPOTHESIS TESTING
soil samples, measuring the species diversity of different ecological zones, describing the stages of ecological succession and so forth.
• The economic value of biological resources should be estimated, particularly if you plan to compare the economic advantages of different patterns of land use. You may record the price and availability of plant and animal products sold in rural marketplaces, assess the time people spend in harvesting the resources and estimate the cost of transporting the goods to where they can be sold.
1.5
Describing the field siteWhen you decide to carry out long-term research in an area, YOIl should consult
secondary sources such as ethnographies, maps and geographical accounts to describe the land, local people and conservation status of the region where you will be working. Table 1.1 lists some elements to be included in the description.
The geographical location of the research site should be stated, giving the country, state, province, municipality or other political geographical unit used locally. Citing the surface area in square kilometers (km2) aids in comparison with other research sites. Reporting the longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates helps other researchers find the area on a topographical map. The history of the geological formation of the land should be described as well as the topography, soil types and geographical landmarks (watersheds, mountains, caves and so on). Delineate the major climatic zones, pointing out seasonal fluctuations in temper-ature and precipitation. Finally, characterize the floristic and faunistic regions and the major types of vegetation that cover the land, including the various stages of succession observable in the study site.
State the size of the human population and give information on its geographical and demographic distribution by providing answers to questions such as: What are the major settlements and where are they located?; How many inhabitants are men and how many are women?; How many people are there per household? When archaeological and ethnohistorical data permit, delineate the history of the people's arrival in the region, giving an estimate of the number of years they have been settled there. Record the languages they speak, including rates of monolingualism and bilingualism and levels of literacy and formal education. Describe their ethnicity, giving the approximate population of each ethnic group. Characterize the degree of social stratification of the community and the relations between the various groups. Enumerate the productive activities of the local people and describe how the labor is divided between men and women, young and old and other social groups. List the important subsistence and commercial crops, estimating yields. Characterize the system of land tenure and how the territory is divided up into different categories of ownership. If people are migrating into or out of the region, give the origin or destination of the immigrants and estimate their number.
Table 1.1 Suggested categories for describing the land, people and conservation status of a research site
Land
Geographical location and map Surface area in km2
Longitude and latitude Geological formation Elevational range
Major geographical landmarks Soil types
Climatic zones and seasons
Vegetation types and successional stages
People
Population size and distribution Language(s) spoken
Ethnic affiliation( s) History of settlement Major social groups or classes Productive activities
Subsistence and commercial crops System of land tenure
Rates of migration
Conservation status
Size and status of protected areas Transportation infrastructure Natural and human-caused disasters Colonization
Agriculture Logging
Alternative land-use schemes Nature tourism
Extractivism
After describing the land and the local inh<'lbitants, characterize the conserva-tion status of the region. Give the number and size of all areas that are officially protected, such as biosphere reserves, national or state parks or buffer zones. Note any traditional system of protected areas that are maintained by local people. Indicate current threats to both protected and unprotected sites. Describe natural and human-caused disturbances that affect broad areas in the region, including fires, floods, erosion and long-range sources of pollution such as fertilizer runoff, pesticides and acid-rain. Report the extent of transportation infrastructure - roads, airstrips - and how it affects the ease of access to natural areas. Characterize demographic trends and their impact on natural resources and vegetation: Is there
DATA COLLECTION AND HYPOTHESIS TESTING
large-scale colonization, driven by resettlement and immigration of people from another region?; Are these colonists destroying primary forest? Assess the ecolog-ical damage caused by subsistence and commercial agriculturt!, giving special attention to activities which result in large-scale clearing of the vegetation, such as cattle-raising, growing of export crops in plantations and shifting cultivation. Delimit the areas where logging is practised and characterize the species that are targeted. Calculate the amount of each that is harvested and determine who is processing and profiting from the timber (community-based sawmills, private pulp mills, international traders in valuable hardwoods and so on). Record other activities which threaten large tracts of land, such as mining and hydroelectric projects. When working in an area that is visited by tourists, assess their numbers and impact on the environment. If non-timber forest products are being extracted from the region, state who is doing the collecting (local people, scientific expedi-tions, hobbyists, commercial enterprises), the species affected and the approximate amount of material that is being removed. When possible, investigate if these are legal or clandestine activities.
1.6 Ethnobotanical
data
1.6.1 What are ethnobotanical data?
When ethnobotanists speak of data, they are referring to the broad range of information they collect on how local people interact with the natural environ-ment. Data are recorded in many different forms - collections of plants and animals, recorded interviews, laboratory analyses, photographs, market surveys and so on. A data set is a collection of information gathered in a systematic way - a list of all local firewoods elicited from several members of a community, the results of screening for alkaloids in selected medicinal herbs or a census of trees in a one hectare plot, to list just a few examples. Before setting out to compile a data set, we first define the domain or subject of interest. For example, we might delimit the domain by choosing to study all plants used for stomachaches, insects that are edible or categories that people use to describe local soils.
By collecting data sets in a systematic way using an explicit methodology, we can show colleagues how we arrived at our conclusions. Other researchers can then reanalyze our data or collect similar data in another area to see if they achieve the same results. In this way, we can see if our observations apply, for example, to a single community, to all traditional agriculturalists or to all people around the world.
1.6.2 Compiling a data set
It is never possible to compile a complete ethnobotanical data set. Imagine the difficulties. Every plant and animal in the community or region would have to be collected. You would need to accompany every man, woman and child into the field, asking them the names and uses of all organisms and observing how they
prepare and use each species. You would be required to transcribe and analyze every folk name as well as all discussions, myths and legends that are in any way associated with what people know about the natural environment. All edible and medicinal plants would have to be analyzed in the laboratory. Animal populations would be monitored to assess the impact of hunting. Other ecological methods would be applied to assess the impact of plant resource harvesting. Such a process would be a burden for community members and would take more time, money and patience than ethnobotanists have at their disposal.
What shortcuts do we take to reduce our workload yet still achieve accurate results? First, we define carefully the scope of our study. Then we choose the techniques that will be employed and select a subsample of people who will participate in the project. Suppose we want to discover which plants are being cut for firewood in a certain village. We would need to collect only trees and shrubs, leaving the herbs, ferns, vines and other plants for another study. If we learn that only women and pre-adolescent children are responsible for fuel gathering, we could limit our questioning to a representative number of people selected from this segment of the community. We would transcribe only a small number of plant names. Our laboratory studies would be limited to discovering how much heat is emitted by each type of wood, if the wood bums green or must first be dried and other similar questions. This is already a time-consuming study, but much less demanding than an exhaustive ethnobotanical assessment.
Another important step in compiling a data set is to define how to categorize and measure local knowledge and management of the environment. Categoriza-tion is the way that something is divided up into a set of different classes, such as types of soils, lifeforms of plants and so on. In ethnobotanical studies, it is preferable to collect data by using ernie categories, those drawn from the way people perceive things through their own eyes and classify objects in their own language. For instance, it is better to refer to the local names and symptoms of illnesses when interviewing people about medicinal plants than to employ a typology of health conditions drawn from Western medicine.
On occasion, you will also use etie categories, which are taken from the way the researcher perceives and classifies the world but do not necessarily form part of the classification systems of local people. For example, ethnobotanists com-monly divide the use of plants into categories such as food, medicine, firewood and construction materials, even though these may not be distinct classes for the local people with whom they are working. If you must use etic categories, choose a simple set of classes that all participants in the study can grasp intuitively. Allow local people to modify the categories, adding new ones when they feel it is necessary. Above all, be careful not to force other peoples' knowledge into your own way of seeing the world without first trying to understand local perception and classifica-tion.
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us from our everyday life. We use units such as years when speahng of a person's age, meters when we talk about the elevation of a mountain or kilograms when we weigh ourselves. The choice of units we select for a study always should be guided by common sense, custom and the relative need for precision in our results. There may be local systems of units that allow for greater accuracy of measurement in the field, simply because participants are accustomed to the tools and scales they use for measuring. These measurements can later be converted to an internation-ally recognized system of units to make the results comparable with other studies.
Before you begin measuring something, be clear on the degree of precision that you wish to attain and stick to the same units, tools and scales throughout the study. Fine measurements can always be lumped into grosser classes, but it is never possible to split broader measurements into finer divisions. For example, if you measure the diameter of a tree trunk to the nearest millimeter, you will have no problem dividing the trees into diameter size classes such as 10-15 cm, 15-20 cm and so on. However, if you use such broad classes to begin with, you will never be able to carry out calculations based on the precise diameter of the tree, such as calculating the average diameter size for a certain species.
1.6.3 Organizing the data
As your fieldwork progresses, you may have data of many different types, including information in collection notebooks, transcriptions or recordings of interviews, results from sorting tasks, plant identifications sent by collaborating botanists and laboratory analyses contributed by ethnopharmacologists. The next step is to organize this information in a way that will allow you to ask questions of the data and to compare the results of one part of the study with another.
Many researchers create a card file, a box of note cards on which they collate and cross-index information. For example, in a card file organhed according to biological species, a separate note card is made for each different plant and animal and is then placed in alphabetical order. All information pertaining to the species is written on the card - the collection numbers of specimens, local names, uses and so on. This card file allows the researcher to see if the species are named and used in the same way by all local participants.
What if the ethnobotanist wants to know which local names correspond to a single biological species or which plants are used to treat skin diseases? Additional card files would have to be made, one ordered by indigenous name, the other by use. Ideally, each card file would be cross-referenced to the others. An example of this kind of card file is described in Box 1.2.
Box 1.2 A card file on Tzeltal ethnobotany
In
the early 1960s, one of the first major inventories of folk botanical categories was initiated by an anthropologist, Brent Berlin, and two botanists,Dennis Breedlove and Peter Raven. During several years of fieldwork in Chiapas, a state of southern Mexico, they collected over 10 000 plants and documented many hundreds of folk botanical categories of the T zeltal, a Maya-speaking group of the highlands of Chiapas.
In their monograph, Principles ofT zeltal Plant Classification, Berlin and his colleagues [7] describe their use of a card file that brings together botanical, linguistic and ethnographic data:
... a series of T zeltal collection files were begun early in the research. These files were drawn directly from our T zeltal collection notebooks and arranged arbitrarily in alphabetical order. A collection file entry, made on 4 X 6-inch slips, would include the T zeltal name and all
collection numbers of that plant with their corresponding informant identification numbers ... a duplicate file, made on regular 8.5 X
11-inch paper, was begun, which included the botanical identifications, as these became available.
Berlin and his colleagues give an example, depicted in Table 1.2, of one card from the file ordered by indigenous name. The card includes the T zeltal name, the collection number, the number of the informant who identified the collection and the botanical determination.
Table 1.2 Example of a card from the Tzeltal Maya ethnobotany card file created by Brent Berlin and his colleagues during fieldwork in Chiapas, Mexico
Tzeltal Collection Informant's Botanical
name number number determination
'ac'amte' 204 8 Rapanea myricoides
499 8,53,54,55 Rapanea myricoides
587 8,56 Rapanea myricoides
6876 2 Myrica cerifera
6954 3 Rapanea juergensenii
7032 1,2A,3 Rapanea myricoides
7393 1,2,6,7 Rapanea myricoides 7755 1,2,6,7 Rapanea myricoides 8853 8,9 Rapanea myricoides 9321 1 Rapanea myricoides 9657 8 Rapanea myricoides 10824 1,2,8 Rapanea myricoides 12477 1,20,21,22 Rapanea myricoides 14093 2 Rapanea juergensenii 14121 2 Rapanea juergensenii
These researchers also cross-referenced the card file on folk classification to a file on how the plants were used by the T zeltal:
